If an opinion poll showed that a majority
believed the Moon to be made of green cheese, would that constitute ‘proof’ of
the Moon’s composition? To most of us,
that might sound like a very silly question, but not apparently to one Tory
AM, who said this week that “… this poll indicates that it is having no
effect on child abuse rates …”, in reference to an opinion poll asking
residents of New Zealand whether they thought that the smacking ban was
effective or not. For him, the poll constituted
‘proof’ that the ban doesn’t work. But opinion
polls only measure opinions (the clue is in the name, surprisingly enough), and
in the universe inhabited by most of us they tell us absolutely nothing about
the substance. For that one needs facts
and figures, and maybe even an expert or two to interpret them.
It’s easy to mock such an obvious example
of confusion between opinion and fact, and simply put it down to individual
stupidity; but what if it’s not stupid but entirely deliberate? Over the last few years, we’ve seen an increasing
tendency in politics, particularly politics of the ‘right’, to either ignore
facts or else treat unevidenced opinions as being equivalent to facts, and the
politicians have got away with it because much of the media play along with
them. The internet is awash with opinion
presented as fact and then shared and reshared until many are convinced that it
must be true. Even in the mainstream media,
in the name of ‘balance’, opinions which are very obviously disproved by any
examination of the hard, objective reality are given equal validity and
attention as provable and demonstrable facts.
The ancient saying has it that “those
whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad”; the modern equivalent
seems to be that those whom some politicians wish to control, they first
confuse between fact and fiction.
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